


another name goes up in lights

by 5oomilesmore (byathousandcuts)



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Max and Mo are famous, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-20 16:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30007866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byathousandcuts/pseuds/5oomilesmore
Summary: Every bit of programmer Zoey Clarke’s logic vanishes when she meets a handsome stranger at a coffee shop. She and Max immediately hit it off, and for once, Zoey feels like she might actually break her cycle of unnecessarily complicated relationships. Except for one thing: she's completely oblivious to the fact that Max is an up-and-coming pop star.
Relationships: Mo & Max Richman, Zoey Clarke & Max Richman, Zoey Clarke/Max Richman, background Leif Donnelly/Tobin Batra
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "The Lucky One" by Taylor Swift.

_“Today on Analog Dialogue, we have Stanford professor Mariela Ross…”_

Zoey waited patiently outside her new favorite coffee shop, the Golden Gate Grind, while listening to the latest episode of one of many podcasts she had been meaning to catch up on. She checked her phone for the time. _7:55 AM._ Right on schedule, a bubbly blonde woman wearing a navy blue apron unlocked the door from the inside and held it open for her.

“Morning, Zoey!” The woman smiled brightly, her cheery demeanor a sharp contrast to the cloud Zoey carried over her head that morning. Zoey rested her headphones on her shoulders and yawned dramatically as she walked into the coffee shop, wishing she could rub her dark undereyes right off her face.

Three years working at SPRQ Point, and the only things Zoey had gotten used to were the long nights of coding and even shorter nights of sleep. Lately, it was as if her boss, Joan Bennett, whom Zoey both admired and feared, had lost all sense of boundaries, keeping the coders at work until midnight on a regular basis. Last night had been one of those nights, and all Zoey could count on to get her through the day was her morning coffee.

“Hey, Autumn. Good day so far?” Zoey offered sheepishly, wondering just _how_ good someone’s day could possibly be before eight in the morning. She slowly approached the counter while Autumn bustled around behind it, already preparing the espresso for Zoey’s usual order.

“It’s always a good day when I get to see my favorite customer first thing!” Autumn gushed, twisting her head around while she steamed milk in a metal pitcher.

“Have I already earned that title?” Zoey grinned. She had decided to try the new coffee place the first day it opened two weeks ago at the insistence of her mother _(“we really should be supporting more small businesses, Zoey”)_ and had come back every morning since. Autumn had even started letting Zoey in before the coffee shop opened at eight. Zoey wondered if it was because the Golden Gate Grind didn’t have that many customers yet—she had passed by a few times in the early evenings to see one or two patrons sipping their drinks and chatting, but it was nothing compared to the line out the door of the nearby Starbucks during rush hour. 

“Of _course!_ Usually, you’re the only one who even asks how my day is going. Well, this guy named Kane does too, sometimes, but _he’s kinda creepy…”_ Autumn’s voice trailed off as she artfully poured the steamed milk on top of the espresso shot, creating a heart shape in the foam. “Voila! One nonfat latte, as usual.” 

Zoey took the warm paper cup in her hand gratefully, waving her cell phone over the contactless card reader. While she was busily adjusting the angle of her phone so the payment would _finally go through,_ Zoey missed the way that Autumn’s eyes bugged out and how she froze as someone else walked into the coffee shop.

“Just… _come on…”_ Zoey finally managed to scan her phone on the terminal. “There! Thanks, Autumn, have a nice—”

When Zoey turned around with the intention to leave the coffee shop, latte in tow, she instead rammed head-first into a much taller man. To her dismay, the lid of her coffee cup burst forth, splattering the front of the man’s shirt with the hot liquid and bouncing some back onto Zoey herself. She heard him audibly wince at the contact. Behind the counter, Autumn squealed and ran into the kitchen, leaving the two of them alone.

 _“Holy—_ I’m so, so sorry!” Zoey took a step back, assessing the damage. The man’s shirt was _definitely_ not going to escape the situation unstained. Zoey nervously glanced up at his face, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t curse her out. 

“Ah—no worries,” the man smiled down at her. Zoey was immediately taken by how unbothered he looked after having coffee spilled on him just moments before. _Better than unbothered,_ she thought to herself. His face was framed with a dark grey baseball cap, with chocolate brown hair peeking out underneath. Perfectly trimmed stubble outlined the curve of his smile, and his _eyes…_ They peered down at her, warm and brown, and Zoey suddenly felt weak in the knees.

 _“Hot…_ the coffee! Must have been hot! Are you okay?” Zoey whirled around to pull a wad of napkins—four, five, maybe ten—out of the dispenser. She resisted the urge to gingerly press the napkins over his chest and soak up the coffee herself, instead holding them out to him like a peace offering.

The man chuckled, accepting the napkins gratefully and lightly dabbing at the dark stain on his powder blue button-down. “You know, it did burn _just_ a little bit, but I think I’ll survive.”

Zoey felt the corners of her mouth turn up at his lighthearted response, her eyes darting nervously to the floor before returning to the handsome stranger’s face. “Let me make it up to you,” she offered boldly, tapping her index finger to her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I’ll buy your coffee.”

The stranger raised his eyebrows at her with an almost incredulous smile. “You… sure. Thank you for offering.”

Autumn emerged from the kitchen hesitantly, and Zoey could have sworn that she was wearing a different shade of lipstick than before—her favorite barista was sweet, if a little kooky. She walked up to the counter with a flight attendant smile, addressing them as if she hadn’t witnessed the embarrassing coffee spill just moments before. “What can I get for you today?”

“Coffee, black,” the man replied without hesitation. Autumn nodded, blushing furiously before turning around to prepare his coffee. _What was up with her, anyway?_

“Black coffee, huh? You know, you could’ve ordered a venti-whatever with five shots of espresso and I would’ve footed the bill.” Zoey assessed him out of the corner of her eye, wondering how much she could learn about a person from their coffee order.

He shrugged. “I like keeping it simple.”

Autumn held a paper cup out to the man with an even wider smile than before. “Here’s your coffee! And there’s, um, _something else_ on there, too.” She winked at the man, earning a confused look from Zoey.

Zoey waved her phone over the terminal before he could even think about paying, resolving to make it up to the poor guy for ruining the start of his day. She prayed to the powers that be that she would get it in less than ten tries this time so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself in front of the man for the second time in less than five minutes. Miraculously, the payment went through on the first try, and Zoey pumped her fist with satisfaction before realizing that people could actually see when she did things. She blushed and awkwardly grabbed her forearm.

The man chuckled. “Hey, an achievement like that deserves to be celebrated!” Zoey perked up at the sound of genuine kindness in his voice. “Those things are the _worst.”_

“Aren’t they?” Zoey crossed her arms and faced the man. “I mean, you’d think that the near field communication technology of contactless payment would be finer-tuned considering how many people use it now,” she rattled off before realizing that he probably had no idea what in the world she was talking about. “S-sorry. I’m rambling.”

“No need to apologize. I could listen to you explain contactless payment all day,” The tips of Zoey’s ears reddened with heat at this comment—was he _flirting_ with her? “Actually, I majored in Computer Science at Columbia before I—” he trailed off, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

Autumn cleared her throat loudly, and Zoey realized that she and the handsome stranger had probably been standing in front of the counter a little longer than was appropriate. “Enjoy your coffee!” she said pointedly, batting her eyelashes directly at the man. Zoey had no idea that Autumn was such a shameless flirt.

Zoey looked up at the man, her brows knitted in apprehension. “I should, uh, start heading to work.”

“Which way are you headed? I’d love to walk with you… if you’re up for it, that is,” he offered a small smile, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Sure,” Zoey agreed, her face breaking into a grin. “I work a few blocks away at SPRQ Point,” she divulged as they headed toward the door, with the man jogging slightly ahead of her to hold it open.

“SPRQ Point! Wow. Well, that makes sense with how passionately you were talking about near field communication tech a second ago.”

“Yeah…” Zoey laughed nervously. “So, what do you do?” she asked as they strolled down the street, her companion keeping his head down and occasionally glancing at their surroundings.

The man gave her an amused smile, and Zoey cocked an eyebrow at him questioningly. “Oh, uh, I’m a musician,” he explained before taking a long sip of coffee, his eyes darting to the side. “You listening to anything good?” he gestured at Zoey’s headphones, which were still wrapped around her neck.

“It’s a… _band…_ you’re probably never heard of them,” Zoey lied, deciding that it was probably not the best idea to tell the handsome musician that she didn’t really listen to music.

“Oh, really? Try me,” he smirked devilishly, kicking Zoey’s heartbeat into overdrive. She decided to change the subject.

“Now, wait… we’ve been talking for, what, five minutes, and I still don’t know your name?” she looked up at him expectantly. He hesitated, as if he was wavering on whether to tell her.

“Max.”

“Well, Max,” Zoey stopped walking and extended her hand. “I’m Zoey. Nice to meet you.” He chuckled at her formal comportment and took her hand, shaking firmly. Zoey suppressed a gasp as their fingers touched, sending a surge of sparks up her spine. Their hands lingered for a moment before both dropped them and cleared their throats.

“Looks like we’ve arrived at your destination.” Max looked up at the towering SPRQ Point offices before them, the building a behemoth of glass and bright colors.

“Yeah,” Zoey leaned back on her heels, not wanting to part ways with him despite knowing that a few weeks from now, she likely wouldn’t even remember the brief interaction. Max, however, exhibited a similar hesitation.

“Listen, uh, I have to head over to the studio right now, but… would you maybe want to grab lunch later?” He slid his hands into his pockets nonchalantly.

Zoey’s cheeks burned as she nodded rapidly, a smile creeping onto her face. “I’d love to.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up at noon?” he asked, grinning.

“Perfect. See you then, Max.” Zoey looked over her shoulder with a teasing grin as she opened the door to the building, memorizing the curve of his smile as he watched her go.

✰ ✰ ✰

“What’s with the ridiculous grin on your face, Sir Max-a-lot?” Mo asked as Max walked into the recording studio. Finally shielded from the prying eyes of San Francisco, Max removed the baseball cap from his head and ran his fingers aimlessly through his curls. 

“Nothing. Just… I met this woman at the coffee shop this morning,” Max couldn’t help but smile at the thought of his interaction with Zoey. She was a welcome shock to his system—from the red in her hair to the steaming hot beverage she had deposited all over his shirt that morning.

“Well, that would explain why you dared to wear a coffee-stained shirt in my presence,” Mo scoffed at Max’s soiled button-down. “Was she another lovesick fangirl?” 

Max shook his head. “No, no… Actually, I don’t think she had any idea who I was.”

Mo cocked a skeptical eyebrow at Max. “Oh? So she’s mysterious, _not like other girls,_ is that what you’re saying?”

 _“No,”_ Max scoffed admonishingly. “Just… I don’t know, less than six months ago we could walk down the street and nobody would bat an eye, but now it’s like everybody wants something from us.” Mo gestured pointedly at the white paper cup Max held in his hand, which had a phone number hastily scrawled on the side courtesy of the barista. “Zoey… she made me feel normal.”

“Speak for yourself, Maxwell. I have _always_ been one to turn heads,” Mo primped exaggeratedly.

Max chuckled. “Anyway, after she spilled her coffee on me, she immediately offered to buy me mine. We got to talking, and she told me she works at SPRQ Point, so I walked her over to her office and asked her to lunch.”

Mo placed his hands on his hips. “Well, well, well… a regular coffee shop meet-cute. I didn’t think you had it in you. Ooh, maybe she’ll finally break you out of your writer’s block!” Mo shot Max a meaningful look, and he rolled his eyes ruefully. He _had_ been struggling to come up with new songs for the past few weeks, but that had never stopped him before. Their manager, Jack, had been pushing Max and Mo to get the writing for their second album done as soon as possible, and they had been cranking out songs at lightning speed.

“Also, I don’t know if you’ve seen, but our music video already hit _a million views!”_ Mo announced enthusiastically.

“Are you serious?” Max’s eyes widened. “Mo, this is huge!”

“It sure is, Maxwell. Now come on, if we want to keep riding that wave, we have to get to work,” Mo set off toward the sound booth, looking over his shoulder in question when Max didn’t follow.

“Yeah, I’ll join you in a minute,” Max settled into a chair and pulled his small leather-bound journal out of his backpack, flipping open to a blank page. His mind drifting back to the coffee shop and the petite redhead who had captured his attention, he jotted down a few lines and started humming a melody.


	2. Chapter 2

Zoey walked into the fourth-floor bullpen to see all of the Brogrammers crowded around Tobin’s desk. She approached the group and craned her neck over Leif’s shoulder, barely able to peer over while standing on her tiptoes. 

“What are you watching?” Zoey asked, her ears attacked by the loud music blasting from Tobin’s monitor. 

“Hey, Zo!” Tobin pulled his eyes away from the screen for a brief moment before they were drawn right back, whatever played on his screen holding his gaze like a magnet. “It’s a music video. You probably wouldn’t be interested.”

“You would be correct,” Zoey agreed with a derisory shake of her head, leaving the horde of Brogrammers to their distraction. She sat at her desk and slipped her headphones over her ears, drowning out the sound of some instrument or another with the comforting voice of Analog Dialogue host Allen Cho. Her attention quickly drifted away from Allen’s discussion of JavaScript as she mulled over her interaction with Max. The way he had so nonchalantly reacted to her spilling hot coffee onto him. His kind eyes. His sincere interest in her technological musings. Their conversation played over and over again in her mind.

“Zo-o-ey,” Tobin suddenly rolled up next to her in his desk chair, drawing out her name for all it was worth. “You’ve been staring at that same line of code for, like, ten minutes! What’s up?”

“Hm?” Zoey glanced over her shoulder at Tobin, a hazy smile lingering at the corners of her mouth as she grounded herself back to reality.

 _“Oh. My. God._ I know that dumb look on your face! You have a _crush,”_ Tobin enthused, propping his elbows on the edge of Zoey’s desk and resting his chin on his hands expectantly.

Zoey raised her shoulders innocently and avoided Tobin’s eyes. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Who’s to say?”

“Tobin is, and he says you’ve got it _bad_ for this person. Who are they? Do I know them? It’s not Leif, is it?” Tobin rattled off a series of questions, the last the most urgent-sounding.

 _“No,_ it’s not Leif, so you can relax,” Zoey shot her friend a pointed look, and his eyes nervously darted to the ground. “It’s just this guy I met at the Golden Gate Grind. He asked me to get lunch after I spilled my latte on him.”

Tobin gave her a slow nod, a dubious expression on his face. _“Right._ As one does.” 

Zoey gave Tobin a playful shove, sending him a few inches back in his wheeled chair. “Anyway, he was very friendly. I’m probably reading into it too much.”

“You read into everything, Zo,” Tobin said matter-of-factly. _“But,_ if his response to you soiling his clothes with your frou-frou latte was to ask you out, I’d say you’re reading into it _just_ the right amount.” Tobin winked at Zoey before wheeling back to his desk. Zoey rolled her eyes.

Even as she pored over the code for the new SPRQ Phone’s calendar app, Zoey felt her mind drift back to Max's warm brown eyes.

After what was maybe her hundredth glance at the corner of her screen, Zoey finally saw what she had been waiting for all morning—it was five to noon. Her heartbeat suddenly racing, Zoey glanced down and remembered that the latte had splattered onto her, too. The deep green hue of her sweater could mask the coffee stains fairly well from afar, but the patches of brown were easily noticeable up close. 

Zoey raced into the bathroom and silently thanked herself for having layered a light blue button-down dotted with flowers under her sweater that day. Tucked into her dark wash high-waisted jeans, it didn’t make for a bad outfit, though Zoey missed the comfort of her layers. After depositing the sweater at her desk and hearing no end from Tobin about her lunch plans, Zoey stepped onto the elevator and rode down to the ground floor, tapping her foot to the ever-accelerating beat of her heart.

The second Zoey stepped outside the building, she saw him approach, wearing a tight blue T-shirt that accentuated his toned biceps. 

“Perfect timing,” Zoey smiled at Max as she trailed her eyes over his body, cognizant of the fact that she was most definitely _staring._ The growing grin on his lips not going unnoticed, she tried to play it off. “What, no coffee-stained shirt?”

“Well, I’m in the habit of wearing clean shirts when I want to make a good impression on someone, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. That is, unless you were planning on spilling more coffee on me?” Max asked teasingly.

Zoey shrugged nonchalantly, though her heart had definitely skipped a beat when he had mentioned wanting to make a good impression on her. “There’s no telling. So, what were you thinking for lunch?” she asked Max as they walked down the street.

He looked off to the side pensively. “How do you feel about Thai food?”

Zoey brightened. “I _love_ Thai food! Actually, there’s this place just across the street—”

“House of Thai?” Max finished her thought with enthusiasm.

“Yes! It’s my favorite.”

Max grinned. “Mine, too.”

They fell into effortless conversation on the short walk over to the Thai place, Max darting his eyes toward the ground every so often. Zoey wondered if he was as nervous as she was— _why was she nervous?_

After ordering takeout from the small restaurant, Max suggested they make the short walk to North Beach to eat their food, resuming their banter along the way. They scaled a set of stairs, stopping on a landing surrounded by lush greenery.

“Here, I know a nice spot this way,” Max glanced at Zoey over his shoulder, rounding the corner of a hedge.

“You’re not going to murder me up here, are you?” Zoey cocked an eyebrow at him as she followed behind.

“Okay, you got me. Ever since you spilled that coffee on me, I’ve been planning my revenge,” Max smirked back at her, eliciting a hearty laugh from Zoey. 

After following Max down the bush-lined path, Zoey gasped as they emerged in a small garden enclosed by tall hedges. An abundance of flowers in bright oranges and yellows dotted the space, creating an arrangement that would rival the one in her parents’ backyard. At the center of it all was a simple wooden bench with ivy creeping up its legs.

“Wow… Max, this place…” Zoey left the thought unfinished, her breath taken away by the beauty of the spot.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Max took a seat on the bench, and Zoey sat beside him. “Actually, I like coming here sometimes to write, try out new song ideas… or just to get away from the rest of the world for a bit.”

“Yeah, I can see why,” Zoey took in their surroundings, making a mental note that it was very impressive—despite how little she may know about it—that Max wrote music.

Max smiled, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. He removed the baseball cap from his head, setting free a spray of dark brown curls. Without the cap on, Zoey was able to see his face clearly for the first time as the mid-afternoon sun hit his skin. As he ran a hand through his hair, Zoey felt her lips part, mesmerized by him.

“You… have nice hair,” was all Zoey could manage, squeezing her eyes shut and scrunching her nose up after making the comment. _You have nice hair? Really, Zoey?_

“I could say the same for you,” Max smiled. There it was again—he had turned one of her dopey remarks into something lighthearted. She blushed at the compliment, unconsciously twisting one of her curls around her finger.

As if they both suddenly remembered that they were technically supposed to be eating lunch, Zoey and Max hastened to unwrap their bags of takeout and dug into their dishes—Zoey her usual pad see ew, and Max an order of chicken larb. Between bites of delicious Thai food, they traded stories from college.

“So, Computer Science at Columbia, huh? How’d you end up doing music in San Francisco?” Zoey asked, twirling her chopsticks around a particularly long noodle.

Max sighed. “It’s a long story. I’d actually gotten into the Comp Sci programs at Stanford and Berkeley, but the thought of me leaving New York _and_ not going pre-dental set my father’s teeth on edge. So we compromised.”

Zoey’s eyes widened. “No way. I majored in Comp Sci at Stanford! Imagine if you had gone. I wonder if we would have been friends.”

“Maybe. If you think you’d have befriended a dorky acapella kid who talked way too much about _Star Trek,”_ Max grinned, popping a piece of chicken into his mouth.

 _“Star Trek?_ On second thought…” Zoey rolled her eyes in feigned disgust.

They joined in uproarious laughter, Zoey darting her eyes to the ground nervously before flicking them back up to meet Max’s, which stared straight at her. Zoey felt their surroundings disappear into the far-off corners of her mind, with only him remaining—time moving to a standstill as she saw his eyes dart down to her lips before meeting hers once more. Their smiles radiated heat off each other in the space between them, which Zoey felt slowly shrinking by the second as they leaned in. 

Suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of intense closeness to this man that she had known for less than five hours, Zoey wondered if she should pull away. Closing the distance between their lips wouldn’t be some sort of life-altering occurrence, would it?

_Buzz!_

The sound shocked them both out of their momentary trance. Max leaned back onto the bench and ran a hand through his hair with a nervous chuckle, which Zoey joined in on while seeking out the source of the disruption—a notification from her SPRQ Point Watch.

> 12:48 PM - TOBIN BATRA
> 
> how’s the date, Zo? ;) did you read into it too much?

Zoey groaned exasperatedly. _“I’m going to kill him,”_ she muttered under her breath, turning off her watch with a press of a button.

“Anything important?” Max asked, his body language noticeably more closed off than it had been only moments before. 

“No, uh, just a coworker. But my lunch break is almost over, so…” Zoey cleared her throat, not wanting to bring an end to lunch when things were _just_ getting interesting.

Max rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Right! Well, I, uh, wouldn’t want you to be late.”

“Me… neither. But the, uh, food was…” Zoey nodded animatedly. _“So_ good.”

Max moved his head up and down with similar vigor. “Should we, uh…”

“Yes! I mean… I should get back,” Zoey cleared her throat once more for good measure.

They rose from the bench and tossed their empty takeout containers into a nearby trash can. Zoey stood awkwardly by the bench while Max replaced the baseball cap on his head, tilting it slightly downward as if to conceal his face. She hoped it wasn’t out of embarrassment.

“Do you want me to walk you back?” Max asked. Zoey wondered if he was just being nice to spare her feelings. She decided to give him a way out, if only to make up for the wrench in their afternoon that was Tobin’s ill-timed text.

“Oh! Well, uh, not if that would be out of your way. I mean, I don’t know where your studio is, but I don’t want to hold you up!” Zoey rambled quickly.

“No, yeah! You’re right, I mean. About the studio.” Max scratched the back of his head. 

Zoey wondered how their banter had gone from so light and easy to this awkward trading of clipped sentences. Eyeing Max with uncertainty, wondering whether she should leave the garden first or wait for them to walk out together, Zoey tried to salvage what little she had left of her dignity.

“This was…” Zoey paused, searching for the right word. “Fun.”

Max smiled. “Yeah,” he said softly. 

Zoey rocked back on her heels, testing the silence to see whether he would say anything else. Max stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and raised his shoulders. “Shall we?”

Zoey nodded assent and walked next to him out of the garden, her cheeks still tinged with embarrassment. They descended the stairs in relative silence, one or the other occasionally interjecting with a brief remark. When it became clear that Max would be heading in one direction and Zoey in the other, they paused and regarded each other with tentative smiles. Zoey thought about saying something else to cut the palpable tension between them, but she could only offer a wave. Max tilted his chin down in acknowledgment and murmured a goodbye before turning and walking away. Zoey looked after him for a moment before internally chastising herself and rushing off in the other direction.

That was when he glanced over his shoulder to see her speeding away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone reading so far! i love reading comments, so if you have any thoughts or feedback, especially about the characterization, please share! :)


	3. Chapter 3

Max walked back into the studio and slumped onto the nearest chair, halfheartedly tossing his baseball cap beside him.

“What were you thinking? You just met her! And you tried to _kiss_ her!” he chastised himself under his breath, mulling over the stilted end to his lunch date with Zoey. _Had it even been a date? Had he been reading into it too much?_

And yet, something about being with Zoey felt so natural. The way their banter flowed effortlessly, how she predicted his train of thought before it even left the station, the adorable laugh that escaped her lips after the dumbest jokes left his. Max had never really felt this way before—his stomach churned with an unfamiliar feeling at the thought.

“What’s eating you, HBO Max? You look like someone told you that they won’t be making any more  _ Star Trek _ movies.” Mo returned from his own lunch, removing his sunglasses and casting a suspicious look at Max.

“That’s not—never mind,” Max sighed. “I got lunch with Zoey, like I told you.”

“Oh! How was it? Did she turn out to be a secret fangirl who only  _ pretended _ to not know who you were so that—”

“Mo! That was  _ one _ time. And no, she was… amazing,” Max felt his eyes drift into a daydream as he reminisced over the afternoon with Zoey. “At the end, it felt like we were about to kiss, but then her watch buzzed and everything felt weird after that.”

Mo clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “I mean, she spilled coffee on you, Maxwell. How well were you expecting that to go?” he arched his eyebrows and gave Max a facetious smirk. Max pursed his lips and averted Mo’s gaze.“Now, paint a smile on that white-boy-attractive face of yours and come on. The reporter from  _ Billboard _ is here.”

Max’s eyes widened—he had completely forgotten about their interview with the magazine, and he was  _ not _ looking forward to it. While it seemed that Mo thrived and blossomed under the spotlight, Max was still finding it hard to come to terms with the idea of so many people knowing his name, or intimate details about his life, or his favorite breakfast cereal—the last question had really thrown him for a loop, because  _ why _ did anyone need to know that? With a reluctant sigh, he followed Mo into the next room.

The reporter was a put-together woman wearing a black blazer over a cream-colored silk button-down. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and she assessed the two of them with a curt smile as they walked into the room.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted them with a British lilt, extending her hand first to Mo, who gave it a firm shake, and then to Max, who moved his hand with significantly less gusto. “I’m Jessica Hamilton. Pleasure make both your acquaintances.”

“Much obliged,” Mo smiled, ever the charmer. Jessica pressed the recording button on her phone and set the device in front of her, flipping a small notepad open and clicking her pen.

“Less than half a year ago, the name MAXIMO was not one that the music industry was familiar with. Now, your debut single ‘Don’t Take The Money’ has over 200 million streams on Spotify, and your first album debuted at number one on the pop charts. What has it been like to have been plucked out of relative obscurity and thrown into the spotlight?”

In an almost practiced gesture, Max glanced at Mo with a short turn of his head, signaling for him to take the lead. “Jessica, to be quite honest, it’s been a dream come true. Max and I have a vision, and it is incredibly validating and gratifying for that to be resonating with so many people,” Mo said—with  _ just _ a bit of put-on sophistication, Max thought. Mo darted his eyes quickly to the side and raised his eyebrows at Max.

_ “Right, _ and I think we both put a lot of ourselves into this first album, so it’s been great to see the positive response to that,” Max nodded, managing a weak smile.

“Absolutely, thank you. And how did the two of you meet? How did MAXIMO come to be?” Jessica asked while jotting down notes, not even bothering to glance up from her notepad.

Mo took the lead once again. “We met in college during acapella auditions. It’s actually a really funny story. During his audition, Max—”

_ “Okay!” _ Max cut Mo off with a subtle nudge of his knee under the table. “That’ll have to be a story for another time. But, uh, yes, we met in college, and then we were actually roommates for several years.”

“Sometimes, Max would pull out his keyboard and start playing something, and I’d sing along, and one day we just made the decision to enter into a partnership. Started writing songs together.  _ Max _ came up with the name,” Mo shot a smiling glance his way.

Max brightened at this. “I did! MAXIMO—a combination of the two of our names. Mo insisted on stylizing it in all caps, though.”

“That I did. MAXIMO! It screams out for your attention, just like we do,” Mo winked, and Max smiled. 

“Brilliant! What a lovely story.  _ Now,”  _ Jessica looked up from her notepad with a sly smile. “Our readers are  _ dying  _ to know if either of you has got a special someone in their life.”

Mo dramatically flung his hair over his shoulder. “Oh, you know. A number of gentlemen have tried, but you can’t lock down a free spirit like mine  _ that _ easily.”

Jessica directed her attention at Max with an arch in her eyebrow. “And you?”

Max gulped, unsure how to answer the question. His last relationship had lasted only a month and had ended over a year ago, and since then, he hadn’t had much luck in the romance department. And  _ yet,  _ Zoey’s face tugged at the back of his mind with persistence.

“No, there’s… nobody,” Max scratched the back of his neck.

✰ ✰ ✰

Zoey felt a tap on her shoulder and dejectedly picked her head off of her keyboard, where it had been resting in defeat for the past two minutes.

“Zoey…? You know we have a meditation room, right? If you want to sleep, you should go in there so Joan doesn’t have a reason to yell at you.” Tobin assessed her bleary eyes with concern.

“No, Tobin, I’m not tired, just a complete  _ idiot.” _ Zoey let her head fall to her keyboard once more, splashing a garbled string of text onto the screen where she had been working on her code.

“Oh, so this is about your  _ date. _ Was he a creep?” Tobin asked with a bit too much eagerness for Zoey’s taste. Zoey lifted her head up once more to fix him with an annoyed glance, and Tobin started picking at the string of his hoodie.

“No, he was great.  _ Lovely, _ in fact. But near the end, we were about to kiss, and I  _ panicked,” _ Zoey groaned. “And that text you happened to send me  _ right in the middle _ of said potential kiss didn’t do me any favors, either.”

Tobin waved his hands defensively. “I  _ swear _ I just wanted to check in. See how you were doing. Make sure you were staying safe. It is  _ so  _ hard to be a woman in this day and age!” Zoey tilted her head in bewilderment upon hearing this rambled justification. He may be her best friend, but did Tobin honestly ever  _ think _ before he spoke sometimes? Tobin sighed and gave Zoey’s shoulder a sympathetic pat. “Anyway, considering the colossal messes that are your past relationships and how  _ horrible _ you are with emotions, I can’t be  _ entirely _ to blame. I mean, I don’t know the last time you had a relationship that you thought felt right.”

“It’s not that, Tobin, it’s that it  _ did _ feel right. Too right. I mean, I met Max this morning, and I already feel like I could get lost in his eyes forever.  _ Forever. _ That’s crazy, right?” Zoey pressed her fingers to her temples, wondering how her mind had strayed so far from its trusty logic.

“It’s not  _ not _ crazy, that’s for sure. But that doesn’t make it wrong. Love is  _ wack. _ Embrace your truth, bro.” Tobin crossed his arms with satisfaction, grinning.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, because I totally blew it. I’ll probably just wallow for a few days and then forget about him,” Zoey sighed dejectedly.

Tobin looked at her with a piteous expression that made Zoey want to slam her head on her keyboard repeatedly. “You should text him. Feel him out, see where his head’s at, make your move.  _ Trust me,  _ I know how to get someone’s attention.”

_ “Right.  _ Actually, Leif is  _ totally _ checking you out right now.” Zoey suppressed a laugh when Tobin’s head abruptly snapped behind him to where Leif was typing furiously at his standing desk, his attention solely focused on whatever snippet of code he was working on. Tobin shot Zoey a punishing look, and she groaned in realization.  _ “Anyway,  _ even if I wanted to, I couldn’t text him, because we never exchanged numbers.”

Tobin winced. “I don’t know what to tell you, dude. Might be a lost cause.” He shrugged and then leaned in conspiratorially. “Also, I’m playing the long game with Leif, so  _ quit it.” _

Zoey smirked as she watched her best friend retreat to his desk and then sighed. How could it have slipped her mind to do something as simple as asking for Max’s phone number? The unpleasant thought crossed her mind that maybe this was the universe telling her that it wasn’t meant to be. Zoey let her forehead fall onto her keyboard once again.

After a long, tiring workday that seemed to drag  _ on and on, _ Zoey exited the building to find her Lyft parked on the corner of the street, silently celebrating its speedy arrival so she could rush back to her apartment and wallow. Thankfully, she had a perfectly good microwave at home practically  _ begging _ to be taken apart. Zoey climbed into the backseat of the car, a dark blue sedan, and gave her address to the driver. As she settled into the leather seat, Zoey begrudgingly listened to the radio, which the driver had turned up to an ear-splitting volume. 

_ “That was ‘Virgo’ by Monica Giles, and next up, number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks straight, we’ve got ‘Don’t Take The Money’ by our favorite new duo, MAXIMO!” _

Zoey scoffed at the loud enthusiasm in the radio announcer’s voice and crossed her arms as a spunky electric guitar riff filtered through the car. A man’s voice, low and smooth, rolled over the instrumental with palpable emotion. Zoey thought his voice was quite impressive, as far as voices went, and she could understand why the song was popular.

_ Somebody broke me once _

_ Love was a currency _

_ A shimmering balance act _

_ I think that I laughed at that _

_ And I saw your face and hands _

_ Coloured in sun and then _

_ I think I understand _

_ Will I understand? _

A higher-pitched voice sang the next part of the song, bold and feisty, in contrast to the first voice’s more melodramatic tone.

_ Will we fight, stay up late? _

_ In my dreams I'm to blame _

_ Different sides of the bed _

_ Roll your eyes, shake my head _

_ Now we're stuck in the storm _

_ We were born to ignore _

_ And all I got is a chance to just sit _

_ (I'm in love and you've got me, runaway) _

The voices came together in the chorus, blending surprisingly well. The lower voice, full and rich, anchored the melody, while the higher voice embellished the harmonies with an impossible series of runs. 

_ You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it _

_ I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets _

_ Your heart forever's all I want _

_ Don't take the money _

_ Don't take the money _

By the end of the song, Zoey realized she had been humming along unconsciously. She shook her head with disdain and scoffed. Damned pop music—why did it have to be so  _ catchy? _

✰ ✰ ✰

Max unlocked the door to his bare-walled apartment and trudged in. After the interview with  _ Billboard,  _ he and Mo had stuck around at the studio for several more hours to get some writing done. After some time, however, the writing turned to talking in circles and pointless arguing.

“So the song is told from the point of view of an old man.  _ Right,”  _ Mo said, making no attempt to hide the skepticism in his voice.

Max tore the page out of his journal and crumpled it into a ball. He dispiritedly tossed the ball into a growing pile in the center of the room and sighed with exasperation. “Mo, we’ve been at this for  _ hours.” _

“Damn right we have, Max. And we’re not stopping until we get something  _ good,” _ Mo crossed his arms insistently.

“I’ve thrown out, what, a hundred ideas so far? None of them were good?” Max asked, growing impatient.

“They were good.  _ Some,  _ that is. But we can’t settle for good, not anymore. We need to be  _ better.”  _

_ Better… better…  _ the word rang in Max’s ears as he packed his notebook and the discarded paper balls into his backpack. He stifled a yawn, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “I’ve gotta get going, Mo. But I’ll have something by tomorrow, I swear.”

Back in his apartment, which he was still getting used to—he had moved there around a month ago with some of the royalties from his and Mo’s first album—Max opened his backpack and dug through the paper balls until he found the one he had been looking for. He unwrinkled it and set it on the flimsy plastic music stand of his old electronic keyboard—he was really going to have to replace it soon. Recalling a melody he had hummed earlier in the day, Max started to run his fingers along the keys, singing off the cuff.

_ I wanna get better, better, better, better _

_ I wanna get better _

Max’s hands stilled on the keyboard, sustaining the final chord he had played. He felt his mind wander back to that morning at the coffee shop and then lunch in the garden, scenes that played vividly in his mind. At the center of it all was Zoey—he couldn’t shake her from his mind. Max hovered his hands over a different chord and started to play again.

_ I didn’t know I was lonely ‘till I saw your face _

_ I wanna get better, better, better, better _

_ I wanna get better _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics are from "Don't Take The Money" by Bleachers (with minor changes) and "I Wanna Get Better" by Bleachers. 
> 
> borrowing music from other artists to use for MAXIMO because i unfortunately cannot write lyrics!!


End file.
